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Bolo de cenoura – Brazilian carrot cake – with brigadeiros

One thing I noticed during our two months in Brazil, aside from people that love to party and bare as much flesh as possible on the beach, is that they love their sweets. With a food culture that’s a mash of Afro, Euro and Amerindian, I’m not remotely surprised at the amount of national and regional sweets that you can sink your teeth into.

Every hotel breakfast we had involved at least two bolos, or cakes, as part of the buffet. Sometimes up to eight. Seriously!

Rather than give you two separate recipes for two of the more common desserts in this country, I’ve decided to lump them together as one.

First we have brigadeiros.

These look like regular old chocolate truffles, but there’s a slight difference with the Brazilian variety. They’re based on sweetened condensed milk, something you see a lot of in Brazil. More richness, more of a caramel flavour and, well, more sugar!

Scoffing two will push you into sugar-high mode. Scoffing three or four will make your throat burn and possibly give you a head-spin.

What I’ve done with these little fellas is adorn one of Brazil’s typical cakes with them. Bolo de cenoura. It’s basically a carrot cake – but nothing like the ones we’re used to in Australia, North America or the UK.

Rather than grate the carrots and toss them into a batter that’s heavy in cinnamon, nuts and weighed down by cream cheese frosting, the carrots are puréed and made into a sponge.

Place all the ingredients (except the chocolate sprinkles) into a medium saucepan. Set it over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until it begins to boil.

Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, stirring frequently, for 16 minutes. Set aside to cool, then refrigerate for at least 3 hours to to firm up.

Using a ½ tablespoon measure, take some of the chilled mixture and then roll it into a ball using your hands. Drop the ball into the chocolate sprinkles to cover. Repeat the process until all of the mixture has been rolled into brigadeiros. Store in a sealed container in the fridge.

You can use a tablespoon measure for larger brigadeiros, but if you're using them on top of the cake, smaller ones work better and look better.

Bolo de cenoura

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Line the base of a 23 cm springform tin with baking paper and grease with butter or cooking spray.

Place the carrot and melted butter into a blender and purée until smooth. Drop the eggs in one at a time, blitzing after each addition. Set aside.

Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and cacao nibs in a mixing bowl. Mix the carrot purée through the dry ingredients until combined. Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin, smooth the top, and bake for 50-60 minutes - or until a skewer comes out clean when tested.

Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing. Set aside to cool completely before glazing.

Glaze

Sift the cocoa and icing sugar into a small bowl. Stir through the milk until dissolved, then drizzle over the cake and allow to set before decorating with the brigadeiros.

Recipe Notes

To get the two-tone effect I did - Make the same mixture without the cocoa and drizzle over after the chocolate application.